Lets talk Quickness
The game is designed to have high risk/high reward builds available. GW1 was also like this. Millisecond reaction times were required, particularly of monks. This is not your typical mmo pvp combat. It’s true quickness like we have now did not exist in gw1, however its playstyle did exist, not only at the team level but also at individual.
Necro/ele don’t have high reward specs sorry.
i guess that depends on your version of high rewards both necros and eles have strong bunker specs that can be used to change the tide of the fight. Also necros are one of the strongest buff stripping /condition specs in the game, condition removal is useless against a good one. necros also are one of the few classes that can where a shamans amulet and still have 20k hp.
elementalists are only slightly below engineers in terms of CC, they are strong in regards to team support and can drastically negate alot of damage. they are probably the closest thing in the game to a true healing class and does that job extremely well.
as far as damage in the form of burst, if that is what you mean by high reward then perhaps you should try mesmer or thief or even warrior if that is what you are looking for.
in regards to the quickness discussion. quickness is truly powerful and while not all classes have it at least one class in particular actually needs it for effective on demand burst: the ranger. with all of the constant pet AI quirks, the pre release nerf to ranger weapon damage, and all around poor design of weapons skills. this class is mediocre at everything and the only thing that allows a spec outside of conditions/traps build is quickness. while i agree that quickness is over powered and dreadfully out of hand in classes like the thief which can spam any ability they want regardless of the damage done or even the warrior somewhat, removing quickness is only possible if the ranger gets some really really good buffs on the 15th. most of us in the ranger community are excited for the changes, however most arent thinking that this is going to be all of the changes we need.
while i see pistol whip or death blossom quickness being ridiculous, quickness for the most part is a well balanced ability. personally i believe most people have learned that warriors with 100blades spec is a very niche build, and is probably the only build new players are arguing about in regards to warriorquickness.
my solution remove the initiative system so that thieves wont be able to abuse quickness and instantly spam 4 pistolwhips in a row or whatever high damage attack they want. At the same time offer other classes the ability to use quickness as a utility, so they can use or not use it as they see fit.
One does not simply remove the initiative system. If they did that it’d kitten all of Theif’s weapons leaving only builds with few inputs that maximize (like the BS combo) would remain useable as things stand. It would also be a tremendous hit to their utility. Besides last I checked, you can only get off 2 hasted Pistol Whips. And after the third (normal) Pistol Whip, the thief will be out off Initiative and Endurance. Plus if someone pops a stun break, the combo is completely shot.
Part-time Kittenposter
Quickness should be removed from the game. There.
When i say that as a gw1 infuser facing good spikes you must have better reflexes than what you need to negate every possible burst on gw2 people simply say that gw1 is another game or that noone can react in 1 second and stuff like that….sadly gw2 requires far less skills than 1…and people are adapting to it
^^ This. If all quickness had the same drawback, I think it would be balanced. The fact that thief gets no endurance, ranger gets no heal, and warrior takes double damage, don’t all see equivalent risks. As a warrior I would rather have the no endurance gain, but then yeah I think it would be OP.
How about some gw1 quickness type skills:
Frenzy: Stance. For 8 seconds, you attack 33% faster but take double damage (I remember this being 50% faster back when I played)
Or even something like:
Soldiers Stance: Elite Stance. For 4…9…10 seconds, you attack 33% faster while under the effects of a shout or chant.
While were are there we could also change rangers quickness:
Lightning Reflexes: Stance. For 5…10…11 seconds, you have a 75% chance to block melee and projectile attacks, and you attack 33% faster.
Soldiers Stance and Lightning Reflexes would be fun, 10 seconds of auto block on 75% chance + increased attack speed.
Would still prefer these over 4 seconds then 4 seconds of quickness though.
Sophea Sladorian – Charr Ranger – [DECM] | Sea of Sorrows
Sophea Of Elements – Human Elementalist – [DECM] | Sea of Sorrows
I second the idea of Quickness being a 33% boost. Futhermore, if they do that, they can increase the duration of the skill so that you can get some more use out of it.
More importantly, make it a BOON like all the others, so you can have it proc on more things like traits, skills, and have it buffed or removed. I think more boons are good, no reason to get rid of it — right now it just is too powerful.
I would rather see it removed until it could be balanced and then re-introduced (or just removed).
Literally the only valid complaint in the idea thread is this:
“8) http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil_of_Rage and http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Critical_Haste makes dice rolls a deciding factor of combat”
Which still isn’t an issue of quickness.
Quickness is just a failed attempt at an exciting offensive cooldown.
I dont think it adds anything good to the gameplay, only detracts from it. The numbers on it are pretty ridiculous and its totally one dimensional (dodge this or die). To lessen this they gave it out to multiple classes. But then they also decided to give everyone different versions, another failed attempt at trying to make it interesting and exciting, even making it that much harder to balance in the progress.
Just another one of the many bad designs in this game that might have seemed ‘fun’ on the drawingboard but doesnt work out in practice, all for the sake of variety and being different.
Quickness seems fine to me, except possibly in builds where adding quickness gives an insta kill to all but the tankiest of opponents.
On a ranger quickness is the only trait that stands out as good on a class that is almost universally seen as weak or even useless in the spvp meta.
You would have to do some drastic rebalancing of all classes if you just decided to nerf or take out quickness. For example those classes that the OP says do not have quickness will have to be nerfed, or maybe warrior’s HB should apply a stun or immobilize as well to make up for it.
However, I think quickness could be just taken off thieves without breaking anything.
Quickness is just 1 of many problems with balancing in this game. Even the various forms of quickness available are not balanced. If a warrior brings frenzy, he almost always has to bring endure pain to counter the negative side effects. These are both long CD abilities, which means when you use it, you want to be sure you get good use of it. This means tacking on another long cd ability (bulls rush) to set it up. There’s basically no flexibility; your either going with these 3 skills, or not. It also means you either win the fight in those ~3-4 seconds, or you lose.
Warrior in general is in a bad state in sPvP. Very prone to kiting, and getting kited on warrior in sPvP is way worse than in wvw, because there is no viable ranged sPvP option. Its very hard to stick on a target as a warrior since, every class has the ability to apply cripple with easy, and most classes just need to snare you once to get enough distance to cripple kite you. This would be OK though if we had a viable bunker spec, but alas we do not. I find it strange that eles and engies have viable/strong bunker specs, but warrior, a heavy armor class does not.
I said it in back in beta. Quickness is absolutely clownshoes. None of the nerfs they applied to it have handled the main problem of quickness, which is the fact that it essentially doubles the DPS output for its duration. It’s crazy, it’s insane, it’s absolutely ludicrous and it’s puzzling to say the least that quickness actually made it into retail.
Imagine if classes had a skill that temporarily made their abilities deal 200% damage. That’s what quickness is.
The fact that the developers have constantly ignored the issue and tried to bandaid it with irrelevant nerfs like reduced healing, makes me believe that quickness was someones pet project and they realized it was ridiculous, but they couldn’t bear to ditch it like they should’ve.
Crimson Imperium Reborn
(edited by Scribbles.7493)
You oversee the fact that most builds have at least one disable/knockback/stun. Save that for when you see the quickness buff on your enemy and his burst is practically nullified.
There are sigils and traits which grant a chance at Quickness on critical.
Your solution backfires badly if you if you hit one of those.
On a side note, people are ignoring how you can’t have perfect awareness of the field. Even if your eagle eyes can determine if your target has triggered Quickness, what about that ranger up above about to unload on you? You can’t know when someone’s about to drop Quickness on you, especially when you need to be keeping track of so much at a time (quickness/stability/retaliation on enemy, confusion on myself, overall positioning, cooldown timers, etc).
Keep in mind that once Quickness is active, they are already triggering their own disable, much faster than you’re going to be able to realize/assess/use counter.
Preemptive prevention of quickness burst is a lost cause, except in 1v1.